


Take it back to the start.

by mellowmarshmellow



Category: OFF (Game)
Genre: M/M, Slice of Life, but im also gonna try and go more in depth than that, erratic upload schedule, he gets to pet the Judge at some point!, i'm bad at dialogue, it gets fluffy, short-ish chapters, the Batter learns to deal with PTSD (ASMR)(POV), the add-ons have personalities, the depiction of violence tag is there just to be safe, theres not gonna be much actual fighting except maybe for flashbacks, they talk abt their feelings because i need more soft batter in my life, yes there will be a mandatory nightmare scene, zacharie with a sword
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-11
Updated: 2020-12-19
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:54:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,690
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28008048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mellowmarshmellow/pseuds/mellowmarshmellow
Summary: The game is turned Off and Zacharie wakes up in a world that is familiar to him. His new task would be to guide a clueless monster through it, shenanigans ensue. Mostly lighthearted, will later touch on slightly heavier subjects but does not have much of an overarching plot.
Relationships: The Batter/Zacharie
Comments: 10
Kudos: 34





	1. Back Home

Oh good lord…  
Everything hurt, but it was soothed by the waves lapping at Zacharie's body.  
His eyes just wouldn't stay open. He caught glimpses of blue. So much blue he thought he had to be dreaming.

He simply lay there, feeling his breath condensate on the inside of his mask and stick to his skin, the damp fabric of his sweater and the stench of blood that was slowly being overpowered by that of salt.  
He watched the sky turn lavender, deep blue, black and dotted with stars. Only then when he tried to move his muscles didn't scream with pain.  
He pulled himself upright and saw a vast expanse of… that wasn't plastic.

It was water.  
It was the ocean.

He couldn't help but let out a whimper, wrapping his arms around himself. He was back home.  
He looked around, immediately gripping his sword again as soon as he noticed it laying by his side, and then-

The sand was dyed a bright cherry red seeping from under a monochrome interrupted by splatters of color.  
The Batter's eyes were rolled back in their sockets and his mouth was wide open, showing blood-stained teeth and letting a trickle of liquid fall out. His tongue lolled out, abandoned on the sand like an ugly spiked worm and his faint breathing came out in wheezes.  
His add-ons lay around him together with his broken bat, sucking up light instead of emitting it as they usually did, silent.  
The hole in his chest seemed to have closed completely, at least…  
The former merchant looked around once again, noticing his backpack sitting on the ground not too far off. He went to recover it to hide his sword once again, before swinging it over his back and going back to the Batter. The sand was harder to navigate than he remembered.

He simply looked down at him, listening to the sound of the waves and his breathing. He wondered if it would have stopped.  
He wouldn't have minded, really. He killed his friends and destroyed their world, but then again he used to be a friend himself. Silent, reliable and unmovable like an ancient fortress.

He crouched down to touch his shoulder, but the shudder that went through the purifier's body made him jolt back.  
The Batter closed his eyes and let out a strangled cry, apparently unable to move.  
Zacharie briefly considered drawing his sword one last time to cut off his head and put him out of his very own misery, but instead he only got closer again and crouched down beside him.  
"Stay still. I'm going to move you." He warned him, though the result was not what he had hoped for.  
The Batter hissed at the sound of his voice, only to shriek again when he tried to move away.  
He didn't seem to be able to say anything coherent, at the moment. Only pleas and gibberish, Zacharie's name, disconnected sentences in a hoarse voice ruined by screaming.  
The merchant let out a harsh sigh and simply sat down to wait.  
Eventually, that little bout of energy passed and the Batter's body went limp once again.  
Zacharie carefully slid the defeated add-ons in his backpack, watching them turn into smaller pitch black rings, and then after a second of thought, the remainders of the broken bat before hoisting the heavy thing on his back once again and finally picking up the unconscious creature.  
At the very least, he had a place to stumble to.


	2. New Morning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the Batter wakes up and gets some explanations.

His limbs hurt less.  
Sure, he was still sore and that spot in his chest wouldn't stop aching, but he felt like he could move if he tried. He had to open his eyes first, though.

He was greeted by a white ceiling with cracking paint. No, not pure white, he noticed with some annoyance. Slightly yellowing.  
He turned his head to the right. A wall.  
To the left, a nightstand with a cat-shaped stuffed toy on it and three white rings.  
He shakily propped himself up on his elbow, vaguely noticing that the fabric of his clothes felt different against his body, and reached out to check one of them. There was an epsilon engraved on it.  
He quickly slid all of them on, welcoming their familiar pressure around his fingers once again before looking down to himself.  
He was wearing a large black shirt with a red x on it and some grey sweatpants. Those definitely weren't his own.  
His unease grew when he took a good look around.  
The colors were almost overwhelming.  
More stuffed toys- pink red green blue brown. A desk, brown. A closet, yellow. It wasn't an unsettling room, but he didn't know where he was.  
He looked around for his bat. Nowhere in sight.  
So he decided to get up.

He decided that he didn't like being barefoot the moment his feet touched the floor.  
Either way he went on, opening the door which led to a hallway.  
He heard sounds coming from another room.  
He slowly, quietly walked over, holding the hand with the rings close to his chest.  
The room the noises came from didn't have a door, for some reason.  
The Batter carefully peeked inside, to find a man with dark brown hair and brown skin sitting at a table, eating in silence. His mouth was large, like a frog's, with little to no lips. One of his eyes was blind, while the other's pupil was a horizontal slit and most of his face was covered in a varying assortment of scars.  
Zacharie…?  
_Zacharie._

The merchant's eye flicked up once he noticed movement and the Batter bolted back to the room he was in before, slamming the door behind himself.  
He could hear his own heart thumping wildly against his ribcage as he slid down to the floor.  
He had to think of something, but his mind was blank and his arms hurt and his add-ons couldn't make it alone.  
He pressed his back against the door and once again held the rings to his chest.

_He was touched. He remembered the angel's voice, the pain, screaming and wanting to get away before it went black again._

It couldn't have been Zacharie who brought him back there and healed his add-ons, but who else could have done it?  
He nearly jumped when there was a knock at the door. He remained silent.  
More knocking.  
"Go away." He commanded. He nearly couldn't recognize his own voice, it had gotten raspy. Zacharie was not deterred.  
"I need to talk to you."  
_"Go away."_ The Batter growled, baring his teeth and curling up on himself even further. _I need to talk to you._  
Again, Zacharie didn't seem to care.  
"You need to know where you are. You have no way of knowing that if you lock yourself in Sh- in a room. Plus, you'll have to come out and eat sooner or later. I think."  
The Batter perked up a bit. He had to ask Zacharie about that, once he figured out what was going on.  
He hesitantly stood up and opened the door just a crack, before fully swinging it open.

The former merchant had changed to a t-shirt with a red heart design on it, exposing his arms covered in simple dark brown tattoos and a few discolored scars, and another pair of black pants identical to the ones he always wore. Or maybe it was just the same pair. He'd gotten his cat mask back on, but even with his face hidden the Batter could tell he wasn't happy about the current situation.  
"I have some meat left, but I won't be able to re-stock on it. You'll have to get used to the food I can get here." Zacharie dryly stated, before walking off to the kitchen again.  
The Batter followed him, trying to get accustomed to all the colors around him and the new smells he'd begun noticing.  
Zacharie made him sit at the table, then plopped down on the chair across from him.  
The whole apartment was small, the kitchen was quite modest. The window gave a view of the surrounding buildings, much like the one in the room the Batter had woken up in. Oddly enough, he was positive he'd never seen any of the room's appliances in his life, yet he still knew what they were called and what they were for.  
"This isn't the world you came from, I'm sure you've noticed." The merchant began, after a short while of thinking.  
"That world… was a parody of this one created by Hugo. You, the Queen and the Elsens are all carbon copies of things he's seen and heard, that's why you're incomplete, in a way. You feel and think things differently than people from this world."  
His voice lacked his usual friendly tone. His head hung low, nothing like how proudly he held himself before their last fight, but in exchange for that pride he seemed to have gained a hint of new life. Instead of black and white now his skin and hair had warm brown hues vibrant under the sun.  
_Incomplete._  
The Batter had to hold back a grimace, letting his straight face fall into a frown.  
"But, there are some exceptions."  
"Which would be you and Sugar." The Batter finally spoke.  
Zacharie didn't say anything. His eye stayed on him from the other side of the table.  
"You had a life here. What was it like?" He continued, waiting for an answer and only obtaining a humorless chuckle. The dull ache in his chest had faded into a background hum.  
"It's in the past, amigo. It doesn't matter anymore."  
With that, Zacharie got up and headed to his backpack, abandoned in a corner. He looked through it briefly to pull out something wrapped in white paper that he then set down in front of the Batter.  
"Your clothes are in the laundry. You can look through Sugar's old closet, but I doubt you two share similar styles." Zacharie chuckled. It sounded genuine, this time. "Make yourself at home. You will be staying here for a while."


End file.
